Catastrophic

We were going to visit Byron Bay yesterday but were pulled up short by a traffic jam about 6k up the road from it. We went to Brunswick Heads instead (a lovely spot) where we had lovely fish and scallops (they’d run out of chips).

We were going to visit Byron Bay this morning but were pulled up short by a traffic jam about 6k up the road from it. We went back to Mullumbimby for breakfast instead. It looks like we won’t be going to Byron Bay this time around.

Breakfast was a latte and organic fruit toast and, according to Mirinda who is, after all, an authority in these kinds of things, it was the best fruit toast she’d ever had. Even better than the Starbucks luxury fruit toast. It was certainly delicious.

We then decided to take the so-called river walk along the Brunswick River. We parked the car and started walking. It wasn’t exactly what we’d call a river walk being used to the English variety but it was a nice stroll that was almost beside a river.

Big bridge that the river walk didn’t go under

We saw a few goannas…actually Mirinda saw a few goannas and pointed them out to me. I only saw two of them briefly before they ran away. She then saw one on a bench which I managed to get a shot of before he, too, ran away.

I’m going to run away very, very quickly

Back when I lived in Australia, I’m sure the fire warning signs only went to Extreme. And, if you really think about it, if the little finger is pointing at Extreme, you have to figure there’ll not be anyone around to read it. Well, things seemed to have moved on a bit from when I was a lad. Now the highest level is Catastrophic.

There isn’t even a proper colour for it

I mean, seriously, who is going to be around to turn it to up to Catastrophic once it’s moving beyond Extreme? And, besides, what sort of danger level IS Catastrophic? Presumably you wouldn’t even dare to strike two rocks together otherwise the heavens would crack open and huge fireballs would rain down.

The sign only detained us a little while and the river walk was over very quickly so we decided to take a drive to the Nightcape National Park. We were almost there when I suggested a picnic lunch would have been nice had I thought of it before we left Mullumbimby. Mirinda told me to shut up.

Poor old Cynthia had a bit of trouble getting us to Nightcape. We were forced to give Bob’s 4 wheel drive a bit of a work out on the back country roads and were very glad we didn’t meet anyone coming the other way during the last bit as the road managed to grow increasingly smaller…if such a thing is possible.

Eventually, once the road was narrower than the car, we decided to turn back, defeated. Though all was not in vain. We did find this amazing bridge which I was going to walk across until we realised it was private property and led to someone’s house on the other side of the river.

An Indiana Jones bridge if ever I saw one.

So, a lovely stroll by the river and a lovely drive through the wooded countryside is how we spent the final day of 2012. While the night was spent at La Table enjoying a wonderful dinner, especially organised for New Years Eve. And this was the menu:

Asparagus, Parmesan & Olive oil Sabayon
Seared scallops and chorizo, fresh tomato salad and Champagne jelly
Saffron infused snapper, coral rice pilaf, baby fennel, finger lime beurre blanc (I had this)
OR
Grilled lamb loin, smoked eggplant and macadamia puree, olive and goats cheese salsa (Mirinda had this)
Orange crepe, dark chocolate ganache, Grand Manier ice cream, crushed nougatine